


The Night Before Christmas

by fangirl933laluna



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Beer is gross but people drink it anyway, Coming Out, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Sirius can Sing, Wolfstar is totally canon, a bartender hosts a pity party, a tiny dose of smut (its healthy), bartenders are my favorite characters, drunk characters are way to fun to write, he still keeps his jacket clean, marley is a reindeer, mild sexual references, okay so there is a plot but i like that tag, plot what plot?, poor pirates shouldn't drink, reindeers and pirates definitely go together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-23
Updated: 2018-09-23
Packaged: 2019-07-16 01:43:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16075733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fangirl933laluna/pseuds/fangirl933laluna
Summary: “You’re drinking like a low-budget pirate,” a vaguely familiar female voice said from behind him.Sirius turned around, his mug of ale sloshing over the back of his hand as he did so.“Marley!” Sirius stumbled to his feet, arms opening in what he thought was a hug, but ended up being the finishing touch to his starfish impersonation once his feet had betrayed the rest of him.A pair of leather heeled boots appeared in his field of view, accompanied by the slight squelch of rubber on a wet floor.“Remus really needs to set his standards higher.”****************************************************************************************Sirius has a curfew, a reindeer dances down a London street at midnight, and Marlene McKinnon gives sage relationship advice.





	The Night Before Christmas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [angelesblackqueen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelesblackqueen/gifts).



> A HUGE happy birthday to my bestest friend in the whole wide world.  
> This fic wasn't originally what I intended, but you know how they like to grow up without your permission.  
> Anyway, I love you to the moon and back, and I hope you enjoy it!  
> XOXO  
> luna

It was Christmas, Remus’s and Sirius’s first Christmas as an official couple, and Sirius had no idea what to get his boyfriend.

 _It should have been easy,_ he thought grumpily. _I’ve known him since we were eleven years old. I know that he only takes milk in his tea, no sugar, that he despises coffee, his favorite food is chocolate, and that he always checks his tie twice. I know what the sound of his breathing sounds like when he’s sleeping, I know exactly the right place to rub between his shoulders when he’s feeling stressed, and I know that when he writes his name he always makes the ‘R’ far larger than the ‘e-m-u-s.’_

Sirius ran his hand through his dark hair, a sigh escaping from his throat.

He knew everything about him. But he had no idea what to buy Remus for Christmas.

He’d gotten James a red and gold sweater with a deer wearing its glasses on its forehead on the front, and words on the back saying, “Oh deer, I did it again, didn’t I?”

Peter would receive, come Christmas morning, a pair of rat whiskers that were charmed to stick to his cheeks until Sirius found it convenient to lift the spell on them (a present that Sirius had laughed himself silly over when he thought of it).

Lily, he’d decided, deserved a gorgeous pair of black lingerie, for multiple reasons, the best of them being that she would find it hilarious and also that James would blow a gasket at Sirius’s buying his fiancée lingerie. Both sounded immensely satisfying to him.

All of these presents were both hilarious and meaningful, which was Sirius’s top standard for present-giving. But so far, none of the presents he’d considered for Remus had fit into either of those categories. (The presents had been a pheasant quill, a pair of brown leather shoes, a silver candelabra with a wolf on it, and a bar of dark chocolate, but Sirius refused to remember that he’d even considered them. It was too humiliating.)

So now he was stuck here on a London street at eleven fifty-nine the night before Christmas, with no present for his amazing boyfriend and…was that a _reindeer_ dancing down the street towards him?

He turned around, his eyes fixing on the outline of what he was _sure_ was a reindeer in a Santa Claus hat, a mini skirt, and high-heeled boots; doing some sort of jig down the street from five blocks away.

 _No way,_ he thought. _This is too crazy, even for me._

He turned around and, needing to get out of the crazy, stressful world he was currently living it, walked right into the muggle bar situated conveniently three feet behind him.

 

Three mugs of ale, one flirtatious girl who’d tried to sit in his lap until he’d politely (read: drunkenly) explained he was gay, and two Christmas carols (sung by him) later, Sirius had come to the amazing conclusion that what Remus really needed for Christmas was a pair of shiny, black, leather pants.

“He needs to loosen up,” Sirius explained, hands flying every which way, to the patient gentlemen seated two bar stools down from him. They both leaned out of the way of his flailing fingers, but gave him a polite, “Yes, of course. I’m sure you’re right” before edging three more stools down, and resuming their own conversation again.

“Well,” Sirius said in a pompous undertone to the bartender, “They clearly have no respect for me and my boyfriend. Should I challenge them to a duel?”

The bartender looked up from pouring a shot of tequila, shook his brown hair out of his eyes, and said, “No, I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

“You’re cute,” Sirius said, eyeing the bartender’s warm, brown eyes.

“But your boyfriend is cuter,” the bartender reminded him.

“True,” Sirius said, spinning around on his stool like a kindergartener in a twirly office chair, narrowly avoiding spilling the remains of his third ale on his favorite leather jacket and stubbing his toe against the leg of a neighboring stool. _“Ow._ He has these beautiful eyes that just draw you in…they’re so wise…and he has the softest hands. Except around the full moon…then they get rough and pokey…but he hates when that happens, so I shouldn’t talk about it…and his hair, it’s so silky…and he always smells like chocolate…he really loves chocolate.”

Sirius raised pleading puppy eyes to the bartender, who looked back at him pityingly. “I don’t know what to get him for Christmas.”

The bartender gave him a sad smile. “Christmas started three hours ago, mate.”

Sirius looked mournfully at his empty mug. “And yet it will be over again in twenty-one, and then I won’t have to worry about it for another year…Can you make time go faster?”

The bartender shook his head and said, “That’s not the way to go, mate. You’ve got to own up to your mistakes.”

Sirius was starting to see an interesting shape in the foam left in the bottom of his mug…it looked a bit like a moon…

And the moon only made him think of Remus, which only fueled his anxiety.

He felt tears beginning to come, and he slumped against the damp, alcohol-stained bar. “I just need a present for my boyfriend.” His voice was muffled by his sleeves, which made him think about Darth Vader from the muggle moving-picture _Star Wars,_ which lead him into a fit of giggles.

 _“I am Darth Vader”—_ a second round of giggles interrupted his impersonation— _“I will destroy the galaxy.”_

The bartender gave him a sad smile and began to reorganize the bottles of various kinds of alcohol on the shelf.

Sirius gave the bartender’s head mournful puppy eyes, and pushed his mug to the front of the counter. “More?”

The bartender sighed, but filled it up again.

As Sirius drank, he heard the door open from behind them. The clock on the wall shifted to read 3:35, just as he was bringing his mug up to his mouth for a swig he heard:

“You’re drinking like a low-budget pirate,” a vaguely familiar female voice said from behind him.

Sirius turned around, his mug of ale sloshing over the back of his hand as he did so.

“Marley!” Sirius stumbled to his feet, arms opening in what he thought was a hug, but ended up being the finishing touch to his starfish impersonation once his feet had betrayed the rest of him, landing him face down on the floor.

A pair of leather, heeled boots appeared in his field of view, accompanied by the slight squelch of rubber on a wet floor.

“Remus really needs to set his standards higher.”

A hand reached down to help him up. “Come on, Padfoot. Let’s have a chat.”

Sirius allowed himself to be pulled up, surprised to see that on top of a very short skirt and heels, Marley was also wearing reindeer antlers on top of her blond curls. “Mar, how did you find me?”

“Let’s just say you didn’t follow your curfew.”

“How is Remus? Is he mad?” Sirius didn’t think he could bear the thought of Remus being mad.

“He’s just a little disappointed, is all,” Marley said sadly, grunting as she propped Sirius up on the barstool, and deftly wrestling his mug of ale away from him like a small child.

Sirius started to cry again. “I don’t want him to be disappointed. He _can’t_ be disappointed. I’m supposed to take care of him, Mar!”

“Well, it’s a little late for that right now. Why don’t we discuss how you’re going to fix this, yeah?”

Sirius looked at her. “Am I on a time-out?”

“Of a sense.” Marley held up three fingers. “No drinking, no leaving without me, and no buying him anything we didn’t agree on, okay? And by Merlin, please let me charm the stench of alcohol off your jacket before we go home. You don’t want to be smelling like a barrel of beer on your first Christmas with your boyfriend.”

Sirius nodded firmly. “Okay.” He sat up straight in his chair, his arms laid neatly on the table and his hands tucked under them.

Marley laughed. “Okay. We can be in school if you want.

“So, first of all, we need to discuss how you are going to apologize to Remus. I promised Remus I’d bring you home as soon as I found you, but I think we need to talk some things over _first,_ so I’ll bring you home _after_ we chat.

“I suggest that you not worry about the present you don’t have right now, and instead think about how to make it up to him. First of all, no late night drinking without your boyfriend. Things can happen and it would be much better if you had Remus’s level-headedness to counter your wild streak.”

“I like it when Remus’s head is level with my belly-button.”

Marley sighed. “I’m glad you have a method that works for you, Padfoot, but I don’t really want to discuss your sexual preferences at this moment. We are discussing something else right now.”

Sirius had a grand idea. “ _My_ head could be level with _his_ belly-button!”

“Sex is not going to be included in the apology package, Sirius Black. That is a cheap move, and not one that will win you a long-lasting relationship.”

“I want me and Remus to last forever.”

Marley squeezed Sirius’s hand with her own. “I know, Padfoot. I know.

“Okay. We are going to have you sign an agreement with Remus, and me as the witness, that any drinking to be done by you must be supervised. Also, I’m going to give Remus license to put whatever whacky shit he wants in there, because he deserves that. You are going to sign it, no complaints, and then you are going to follow it until the end of time, or whenever Remus decides you’ve served your parole long enough. Then, you are going to do one of two things. Either you are going to apologize profusely on your knees in front of him, or you can write an apology song and sing it for him, but you have to do it fast because Remus is probably getting close to knocking the front door down to come looking for you himself.”

Sirius cocked his head to the side, considering.

The bartender said, “I would choose option B.”

Sirius nodded, and began to hum a light tune. “Marley, I need you on drums. Bartender guy, you are going to be my bassist.”

Marley nodded. “Okay. Now, presents. Tell me what you are getting the rest of the Marauders.”

“James is getting a sweater, Lily is getting lingerie, and Wormy is getting stick-on rat whiskers.”

“Okay…well, we need something different for Remus. Something funny because it’s from you, but something meaningful because this is the man you want to spend the rest of your life with.”

Sirius felt his head beginning to spin. “What can I do that fits in both of those categories?”

“Well, here’s where some serious brainstorming is needed.”

Sirius searched through his memories, desperately trying to find something meaningful. Nothing seemed to stick out, until the memory of the day that Remus told his parents about Sirius, and how he was gay.

“Marley,” he said. “I have the perfect idea.”

Marley smiled. “Let’s get on it, then.”

 

Four hours later, as dawn was beginning to creep up, Sirius found himself dressed in his favorite leather jacket (smelling fresh and new, as Marely had cleaned the alcoholic stench from it), his hair properly styled, and eyeliner giving him his favorite bad-boy look. He was standing just in front of the door to his and Remus’s flat, hands tucked behind his back, Marley just to his left.

Marley reached forward to open the door. “Are you ready?”

Sirius shook his head, but Marley opened the door anyway.

Sirius’s eyes hit the feet first. Long toes were hidden behind socks and thin ankles behind worn jeans. His eyes traveled slowly upward, passing over the slight hole that showed a knee behind it, up to the soft cotton shirt pulled taught over thin but strong muscles, and finally up to his boyfriend’s face.

Remus put his hands on his hips, lips pursed.

Sirius took one step forward, all the awful feelings he’d hidden away with ale earlier that night suddenly coming pouring out in one torrent of words that wasn’t even decipherable.

Remus looked at him for a moment, and then, finally, opened his arms.

Sirius fell into them, his face pressing into the warm space between Remus’s neck and shoulder. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered.

Remus simply nodded, holding him so tightly that he could barely breath.

When they finally broke apart, Sirius said, “I want to show you something.”

Sirius took Remus by the hand, and as he led his boyfriend down the steps, he looked back at Marley, still standing on the steps with a smile on her face.

 _Thank you,_ he mouthed to her.

She waved him off, Disapparating before he could say anything else.

Sirius led Remus down the steps, across the street, and over to the grassy park by their flat.

They passed the row of trees that separated it from the busy London street, and crossed over a little creek that ran through the center.

“Where are we going?”

Sirius held a finger to his boyfriend’s lips, and guided him around a big tree.

When Remus saw who was standing on the other side of the tree, he burst into tears, crumpling into Sirius’s shoulder.

Lyall Lupin stood with his hands clenched together to keep them from shaking, tears running down his cheeks. “Remus.” His voice was a shaky whisper.

“Hey,” Sirius said, give Remus a slight nudge with the heel of his hand. “Go talk to him.”

Remus looked up at Sirius with eyes lined with silver. He nodded, and Sirius gently let him go.

He watched his boyfriend stumble towards his father, whom he hadn’t seen in over eight months, since the day when Remus had finally had the courage to come out to his parents and a huge fight had ensued.

Sirius recalled the shock that had become etched into Lyall Lupin’s face. He hadn’t said a word, even at the coaxing of Remus’s mother.

Sirius had always suspected that he was just surprised, and didn’t have a good way of showing it, but he had to admit that in Remus’s case, that was not the reaction he could handle.

So Sirius and Remus had left, and they hadn’t seen Remus’s father since then.

For months, Remus had seemed to erase his father from his memory, and although he didn’t say anything, Sirius could tell that it hurt him.

So Sirius had gone to Lyall’s house and demanded that he apologize to his son, who had done so much for him and for the world.

And as he watched Remus fall into his father’s arms, he knew that his dream had come true. It would be a good Christmas.

 

Later that night, Remus stood in the doorway to their bedroom, his cheeks pink from cold, and his hair dusted with snowflakes.

Sirius had gone home to allow Remus and his father some time to talk, and now Remus was back, and Sirius could see that he was glowing.

He stood up, dressed only in his favorite soft jeans. “Merry Christmas, Remus John Lupin.”

Remus walked across the room to him, and cradled Sirius’s face in his hands, looking up at him. “I love you.”

Sirius turned his face into Remus’s palm, kissing the center of it. “Even after my poor performance last night?”

Remus laughed. “Even after that. You are the best boyfriend I could ever hope for.”

Sirius grinned, biting his lip. “Come to bed?”

Remus looked at him skeptically. “I have a feeling you are planning dirty things.”

“Marley said that sex could only be the smallest part of the present package, so I saved it for last.”

“Marley really coached you in this, didn’t she?”

“Oh, completely. It was almost like being in McGonagall’s class again, except Marley was dressed in a miniskirt and heels, which, by the way, Minerva could definitely rock, but she would never deign to show up in that.”

“It’s a pity, isn’t it,” Remus said, laughing as Sirius tugged him down on top of him.

“Mm-hm,” Sirius smiled as he nuzzled his boyfriend’s neck. His hands traveled down Remus’s back pulling at his clothes, until he was naked above him, and Sirius couldn’t help but feel his breath catch as he looked at his boyfriend’s gorgeous, scar-covered body.

“You are beautiful,” he whispered.

Remus looked at him. “And you, my love, are still wearing your pants.”

Sirius threw back his head and laughed, at the same time feeling a slight tingle traveling down his spine, all the way to his most southern parts.

Sex that night was different from any they’d shared before. It was sweet and loving, but raw and painful at the same time. It remade them and sewed them together in a way that was coherently different from the way they’d been before.

Sirius felt as if Remus was inside his head, his body, his spirit, like they were sharing a body, a life, and it was the most glorious feeling he’d ever experienced.

Afterwards, as they lay next to each other, covered in sweat and breathing heavily, Sirius couldn’t help but smile.


End file.
